


sometimes this city is nothing but smoke

by Cafelesbian



Series: tell me how to breathe in and feel no hurt [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, But i feel like they inform the plot enough to get a tag, The last 2 are really only talked about, With a hint of Happiness at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-08 04:50:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21470335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cafelesbian/pseuds/Cafelesbian
Summary: Without thinking, Wanda shakes her head. “You wanna, um–you wanna come by? Eat something, dry off?”The guy blinks, surprised. “You don’t know me. I could be a trained assassin, or something.”Wanda snorts, partially at the idea of this kid who looks like he’d fly to pieces with a hard enough slap being a threat to her. “I’ll take my chances,” she says dryly. Then she sticks out a hand. “Wanda.”He eyes her for a second, cautious, scanning, then takes it. “Bucky,” he says, and something strange flickers over his face but it’s gone before she can place it.Bucky and Wanda and the trajectory of their friendship, pretell me how to breathe in.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Wanda Maximoff, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: tell me how to breathe in and feel no hurt [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1428403
Comments: 9
Kudos: 46





	sometimes this city is nothing but smoke

**Author's Note:**

> I literally have so many of these little one shots i will continue to put them in the series lmao
> 
> Warnings are very applicable bc this is a prequel and it does take place during the time when bucky is being abused so thats obviously a part of this, its like 95% not his pov but it is discussed so be careful always also there is harassment literally in the first scene it’s very short and nothing ends up happening but consider everything for ur safety my loves

_March, 2010_

It’s pouring the night Wanda meets Bucky.

Freezing, relentless end-of-winter rain that starts the second she leaves the club, that she grimaces at from under the peeling awning of the strip bar until deciding to make a run for it. She lives close, closer if she cuts across an alley down the block, which she usually doesn’t –lots of men there, drunk and leering and unsafe, and she gets enough of that at work– but she’s too cold, bare legs and running makeup, so she risks it.

It wasn’t worth it. Not thirty seconds later, there’s a hand on her back, rough and crude, followed by some guy hissing in her ear, “Hey, gorgeous, what’s your name?”

She turns, heart in her throat. He’s older, harsh face and dark sneer and cold eyes, and bigger than her. “Fuck off,” she snarls.

Sometimes it works. Right now, the guy sneers, “Fucking bitch,” and pushes her into the wall. Terror coils through her, stiff and freezing in her bones. “Just trying to be fucking nice–”

“Get the fuck off of me,” Wanda gasps, and raises a hand to smack him away, but he catches her wrist and there’s no fucking way she can fight him, and before she can scream he’s got a hand pressed over her mouth, and Wanda twists against him, ragged, terrified gasps and half-suppressed movements, but it’s pointless–

And then there’s another voice, a guy’s, and the grip on her wrist and shoulder loosens. “Oh my god,” the new guy says, “Julia, I thought that was you.”

She blinks, disoriented and sluggish through rain and fear. After a minute, the new guy comes into better focus; he shoves lightly past the first guy and touches her shoulder –she flinches, but it’s light– and gives her a tiny nod. “It’s been so long, how are you?”

When she realizes what’s happening, gratitude slams her, leaves her weak with relief. “Hey,” she says shakily, playing along, “oh my god! Didn’t see you there!” She stares at him with what she hopes he reads as _thank you thank you thank you_ and he gives her a half lift of his lips to tell her he gets it.

“Excuse us,” the new guy says, turning to the other guy, “we gotta catch up.” And, carefully, he pulls an arm around her shoulder and steers her away, out of the alley, until they’re standing under the awning of a deli.

He lets go of her right away, and she’s glad for that. “Thank you,” Wanda murmurs, shoulders slumping, “Jesus Christ. You’re a saviour.” She’s still shaking, freezing and terrified and not quite calm now.

She gets a better look at him now, lit up by the harsh, flat bodega lights. He’s young, her age probably, dark hair that’s slightly too long, like he’s a few weeks past a haircut, blue, glassy eyes that flicker in the light, sharp hollow cheekbones, one arm, thrust into his pocket, shoulders turned in on himself a little. She knows him, kind of. She’s seen him in that alley before, on her way to work, grimaced and looked the other way when he was talking to guys twice his age. She knows how it is. He’s kinda handsome, or clearly had been, and could be if things were better, but there are dark circles under his eyes and the remains of bruises on one cheek and dark hickeys littered over his neck and this hollow, exhausted, miserable sheen in his eyes and he looks pitiful.

She doesn’t look much better, though.

“Don’t mention it,” the guy says, shifting his weight. “I know how it is.” She nods, gives him something that isn’t quite a smile. “You okay to get… wherever you’re going?”

“Home,” Wanda says, “it’s just a block away, yeah.” He nods. 

This kid looks so fucking sad. He looks like he’s been smashed to pieces and stuck crudely back together too many times, like if it happens once more, he’ll shatter irreparably. She knows how it is, working like that, just having to shut your mouth and take it when people wanted to hurt you because there’s no alternative. 

Without thinking, Wanda shakes her head. “You wanna, um–you wanna come by? Eat something, dry off?”

The guy blinks, surprised. “Oh,” he says right away, quietly, “no, um, thanks, that’s really… but I don’t wanna…”

“It’s no problem,” Wanda pushes, an aching familiarity starting to tug at her. “Seriously, it’s pouring, it’s the least I can do.”

The guy swallows, staring up, eyes shimmering miserably. “Are you sure?” he says. She nods, smiles again. She’s starting to relax, starting to feel the panic come unstuck inside her, and she takes another breath. “You don’t know me. I could be a trained assassin, or something.”

Wanda snorts, partially at the idea of this kid who looks like he’d fly to pieces with a hard enough slap being a threat to her. “I’ll take my chances,” she says dryly. Then she sticks out a hand. “Wanda.”

He eyes her for a second, cautious, scanning, then takes it. “Bucky,” he says, and something strange flickers over his face but it’s gone before she can place it. 

And so he comes home with her.

Wanda lives in an apartment above a Starbucks that’s cramped for one person and unsuitable for more than that, but somehow hosts about four or five at any given time. She doesn’t mind. She doesn’t like living alone. It’s usually her and Scott, and the rest vary: Peter and Gamora, sometimes, a couple she knows because he bartends at her club and tells guys to fuck off if they get too rough with her; Luis, Scott’s friend from prison; and whoever else they pick up. Right now, though, Scott is out and everyone else has apparently dispersed and so when she heads in with Bucky, it’s dark and bare, movements sending shadows scattering and looming and whirling away.

“You hungry?” Wanda asks Bucky. He startles a little, like he isn’t used to being asked things like that, then shrugs. She takes that as a yes. “I think I have some leftover Chinese, it’s all yours if you want it.”

Bucky bites his lip, hesitant. “Are you sure?”

“Yep.” She crosses the room to the fridge, pulling out whatever is left –a carton of lo mein, some fried rice, some chicken and broccoli– and a plate. “Help yourself. I’m gonna just change real quick, want a towel?” He gives her half a timid nod.

Wanda changes and washes her face, then grabs Bucky a towel and a big sweatshirt of hers that she’s pretty sure will fit him. When she gets back, he’s hovering nervously at the counter, microwave on behind him. He looks, somehow, even more fragile than he had ten minutes ago, panicky fluttering eyelashes and stilted breaths and hunched shoulders, and Wanda bites her lip.

“Here.” She hands him the towel and clothing. Bucky blinks, then shakes his head. “Bathroom’s over there, if you wanna shower or whatever.”

“That’s okay, I don’t need your clothes–”

“Bucky,” she says, sighing with a little exasperated smile, “you’re soaked. Just take it.” 

So he does, with a whispered “thank you.”

He does shower, she notices, but quickly, while Wanda starts making tea. She grabs an extra mug for him –god knows he looked like he could use one– and pulls the plate out. Bucky comes back in quietly, hovering in the doorway, shifting his weight again like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed in yet, like everything is a trick and a trap, like he’s waiting for something enormous to shudder and groan and collapse.

“You can sit,” she tells him gently. He does, after a moment, and starts eating. There’s something desperate about it, reserved and tense and cautious. He eats fast but carefully, trying to take up as little space as he can, tight, coiled twitches of anxiety in his movements.

_Abuse,_ Wanda decides, with a slight wave of nausea. She’s seen it endlessly, has lived it, to some extent, (though, she’ll learn much later, nowhere near what it’s been and will continue to be for Bucky)—creeps like the one tonight, guys at the club drowning in entitlement—and it’s plain and obvious right now.

“How old are you?” Wanda asks him finally, worried, for a minute, that he might say fifteen or sixteen. He startles, shoulders caving in, but then straightens.

“Eighteen,” he says hoarsely. She nods.

“Nineteen,” Wanda tells him, like it might calm him down. He gives her a sad, resigned grimace. “Bucky your real name?”

He looks startled again, and this time he hesitates before answering. “Yeah,” he says after a minute, “Well, um. It’s what… It’s what most people call me. My middle name’s Buchanan, and it just stuck, I guess.” He gives her the closest thing to a smile she’s gotten from him so far.

“Bucky,” she says, “I like it.”

He raises a non-committal eyebrow. “Thanks,” he answers, and relaxes. 

Through a lot of coaxing, and insisting that it’s fine, she doesn’t mind, she gets him to stay the night. Bucky seems nice, and normal, and she doesn’t want it on her conscience that she’s sending him out in the rain to suck off some stranger, so he falls asleep on the couch. The next morning, he makes her breakfast, and she tells him to come back any time, and when Scott answers the door that night to a timid kid asking if she’s there, warmth spreads through her that she can’t quite place.

***

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” Wanda says to him a few months later, a joyless smirk tugging over her lips.

Bucky is living there now, moved into the spare room (which is more of a closet than anything else) once Luis moved out. She’d call him her best friend, up there with Scott. She loves him with everything in her, with everything she has and doesn’t have, would take a bullet for him in a heartbeat. Right now, they’re on the couch, half-eaten pizza box laid open between them, sitting opposite each other with crossed legs.

Bucky cocks his head.

“I mean, how’d you end up doing this?” Wanda says with vague, exhausted wave of her hand. “We hardly grew up wanting to give lap dances to any guy who can cough up twenty bucks.”

Bucky says, flatly, “Speak for yourself,” and she snorts and rolls her eyes. He sighs, though, and leans back. “Yeah, sure. You first, Maximoff.”

Wanda nods vaguely. The room feels like it’s grown darker and smaller in the last several seconds, and she wants to look at Bucky but she can’t make herself lift her gaze.

“Okay,” she says, “well. When I was fourteen, I got into a car accident with my family.” She swallows, her throat growing thick. “Um. My mom and dad and brother, uh… didn’t make it out. I did. Everyone said I was lucky.” She closes her eyes, shivering, tears pressing against her throat suddenly. She hasn’t talked about this in years, and the memory grinds and shrieks and cuts into her, erupting shrapnel, glass against glass. There’s pressure on her wrist, light and comforting, and she realizes Bucky has reached across for her hand. Without opening her eyes, she locks their fingers together and squeezes. He squeezes back. She breathes for a minute, drawn out and even, and then goes on, “And no one wanted a fourteen-year-old from Sokovia, so the foster system basically told me to go fuck myself. So once I was eighteen, I fucked off to the Gentleman's Club we all know and love.” She smiles, a bitter twist of her lips with no joy. It falls silent between them, the air filled with the hum of street conversations and the whine of a siren and quiet, slow breaths.

“I’m sorry, Wanda,” Bucky says softly.

She manages to look up, and he’s gazing at her sadly, but it isn’t pity. Just empathy and love. She squeezes his hand. “Yeah, well.” Brushing away tears, Wanda takes a breath. “Your turn.”

Bucky rocks himself a little, back and forth, distress flooding him. “I had a boyfriend when I was in high school,” he says, after a moment, and the grief in his voice is heavy enough to sink ships. “We were… We were gonna be together, after, too. We really… It was real.” He bites his lip, gaze down so Wanda can’t read him, but his voice shakes. “We were talking about getting a place together. And then my parents caught us together, and, um, they weren’t happy.” Bitterness, sharp and raw in his words. “So they shipped me off to conversion camp for four fucking months. And when I got back, I took off. And you know, not a lot of options for seventeen-year-olds living on the street.” He lets it break off, hanging, ragged, in the air. Without a word, Wanda tightens her hold on his hand. There’s nothing to say, not from either of them, nothing that will ease the immovable misery each of them has to harbor every day. They just hold hands, and breathe, and try to take each other’s weight for a few precious moments.

***

_February, 2012_

Bucky wakes up screaming so loudly one night that it wakes her up from the other room. She bolts in, panicked, half-convinced someone has broken in and attacked him.

He’s alone, though, sitting up, gasping and crying, and Wanda rushes to him. He’s choking out mumbled phrases, slurred by panic and sleep, and at first she can’t understand it but she realizes, after a few heart-throttling moments, that he’s whimpering, “Steve, Steve, Steve,” over and over again, shaking his head.

She’s heard him say names before, when this happens, _Brock_ and _Jack_ and most recently, saturated in terror, _Alexander,_ all of them interspersed with _no_ and _stop_ and _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please stop, PLEASE NO,_ and she has to shake him out of it. _Steve_ is new, though. Swallowing worry, Wanda murmurs, “Bucky, wake up, hon, it’s okay, it’s alright,” and after a moment Bucky stops cowering, pulls himself slowly out of fetal position.

“Steve?” Bucky says softly, disbelief quivering through his voice.

Wanda bites her lip. “No, Bucky, it’s me,” she says gently.

Bucky shakes his head a little, a frantic, panicked motion. “Wanda,” he chokes out, after a moment, “fuck.” 

“It’s alright, babe,” she tells him, “just a dream.” And Bucky nods, and covers his face, so she whispers, “Come sleep next to me, yeah?” and falls asleep holding his hand and listening to shallow, pained breathing and worrying about him.

“Bucky,” she says carefully, the next morning, as he’s making them eggs, “who’s Steve?”

Bucky swings around, and his whole face changes. He’s gone pale, eyes wide and confused and glistening with pain. “What?” he whispers. “Did he… did someone… did he…?” 

Wanda shakes her head. “Last night, um… you woke up and you… you’d been saying the name Steve.” She watches him carefully, trying to gauge the reaction. Bucky’s face goes strangely blank; almost hurt, almost disappointed.

“Oh,” he says, and his voice trembles. “Just. Um.” And then, all of a sudden, he covers his face and chokes out a small sob, too quiet to even register at first, and Wanda leaps to her feet. Bucky waves her off quickly, rolling his shoulders back, shallow, shuddery breaths making him tremble. “High school boyfriend,” he says finally, and he sounds so irreversibly sad that Wanda bites her lip. “The one who, um, my parents found out about.”

“Ah,” Wanda says softly, and puts an arm around him, and feels something in her chest fracture for the pain her friend is in.

(She doesn’t know that not two miles away, Steve Rogers is on Tony Stark’s couch, begging him to find Bucky, as Tony explains as patiently as he can that he doesn’t have a way to do that.)

(She doesn’t know that that night, as Alexander Pierce shoves him to his knees, Bucky wonders how he ever could have thought Steve would try to find him, how Steve could have ever loved him at all. He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Alexander snarls _worthless little slut, shut the fuck up_, and hits him, and then he stops thinking about Steve or about anything at all.)

***

A few months after that, Wanda is out on the fire escape, lighting a cigarette. She doesn’t smoke; in fact, she finds it repulsive, but the last guy she saw today had left his pack behind, and when she went to toss it out she realized it was the one her father used to smoke and miserable nostalgia welled in her chest. _Stop it, those are bad for you,_ she and her brother would cry, and he’d shake his head and laugh and answer, _These won’t be what kills me._

He was right, she supposes. It wasn’t lung cancer after all.

The smoke isn’t familiar like she’d expected; no scent of coming home, no reminder of what it had been like to run up and down her old railing with her brother, playing I spy with her parents. It just burns her throat and tastes like ash, and somehow, she’s too exhausted to put it out, just keeps dragging short little breaths of it.

She hears Bucky come in, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t live there anymore but he’d been there Wednesday, quiet, crying himself to sleep when he thought she couldn’t hear him after she iced a black eye for him. _Just some guy, got mad when I charged him_, he’d stammered, lying through his teeth, but she wasn’t going to force him to talk and anyway, she’s known him long enough that she knows it wouldn’t work. “Wanda?” he calls.

“Out here!” A moment later, he joins her.

“Since when do you smoke?” Bucky asks her, sitting beside her.

“Since the jackass I was giving a lap dance to left his pack,” Wanda answers, and he snorts. Bucky holds a hand out, and she raises an eyebrow and passes him one. “These’ll kill us, you know,” Wanda muses, half-joking.

“Good,” Bucky replies dryly.

She shoves him, hands pushed against his shoulder a little roughly, and he gasps and flinches so suddenly it makes her sit up. “Are you okay?” Wanda asks him, concerned. 

Bucky nods, eyes glazed, hunched over a little. He reaches up to brush his hair back, and the oversized sleeve on his sweater pulls back and Wanda’s breath catches at the sight. Bloodied, terrible cuts around his wrist, dark purple bruises layered over them, deep and mottled and unmistakable. 

“What the _hell,_ Bucky?” she demands, horrified, and when she pulls his sleeve back before he can say anything it’s the same all up his arm, endless imprints of pain, too many and too cruel and intentional to have been one person who got a little rough with him.

Bucky jerks away, jumping to his feet. “It’s nothing, Wanda, you know how it is, sometimes–sometimes people go too far–”

Wanda is up now too, cigarette tossed aside and stamped out. “That’s not just some asshole who got a little handsy, that’s fucking abuse.” Bucky cringes and draws away from her, shaking his head. “Bucky, who–”

“No one, it’s no one, Wanda, _please–_”

“You aren’t safe–”

“I’m fine,” Bucky gasps, tears pouring now, “I’m fine, it was–it was a one time thing, it’s nothing, please, _please_ don’t make–it’s nothing–” And he’s so terrified, wringing his hand, color drained from his face, that she backs off.

“Okay,” Wanda says slowly, “okay, Buck. Alright. I believe you, babe, okay?” Bucky stares at her, skeptical, miserable, and she says, softer, “I believe you. Just… just sit, okay?”

He does, after a moment, knees pulled to his chest, hand shaking. She leans her head on his shoulder, and after a moment, he rests his chin on his head, and Wanda prays that he’s telling the truth.

***

He isn’t.

Bucky calls Scott one night.

It’s almost two, and Scott is in bed, at his and Wanda’s, and when he answers, he’s a little sharp with him. “What could possibly not wait till the morning?” he says, mildly irritated, and ten seconds later, bolts up, because he realizes Bucky is sobbing, terrified, small noises that make his skin crawl. “Bucky? Buddy? Hey, hey, it’s okay, what’s goin’ on?”

“C-can,” Scott hears him choke out, “can—I’m s-sorry—”

“Bucky, it’s okay.” He scrambles out of bed and kicks sneakers on. “It’s okay, sorry I snapped at you, it’s so okay. What’s up?” Panic creeps into his voice. Bucky has been deteriorating, lately, crashing at his and Wanda’s, monosyllabic and terrified and flinching at every motion. He’s never done this, though.

“Can you come—come get me?” Bucky whimpers.

“Yeah, buddy, I’m on my way.” He forces a breath through tight lungs. “Where are you? What happened?”

He makes a soft, high, miserable sound. “P-park avenue and—and twenty-fourth.”

“You win the lottery?” Scott tries to joke, and immediately regrets it, because Bucky starts crying again. “Sorry. Yeah, Buck, I’ll be there in ten.” He’s the only one of them with a car. “Stay where you are, okay? I’m coming.” Bucky hangs up, and Scott’s heart drops a few steps as he starts the car.

He calls Wanda on the drive. “What the fuck?” she says drowsily. “Are you not home?”

“Bucky called me,” Scott clips out, “he was freaking out. Something happened.”

“Oh, god.” He hears shuffling, and her voice grows clearer. “What—what’d he say?”

“Nothing. He asked me to come get him. He was crying.” Scott’s throat feels thick, suddenly.

“Shit,” she whispers. “Okay. Ring the bell, when you’re back.”

“‘Kay.”

Scott spots him slumped, sitting, against a wall. He swallows and throws the car door open and calls, shakily, “Bucky!” and Bucky flinches before looking up.

His face is probably bruised, but Scott can’t tell because everything is shrouded in blood like a gag, covering the entire bottom of his face, a cut on his forehead spilling over. He has to physically avoid wincing. He’s surprised no one called the cops.

“Holy shit, Buck,” he says softly, “who did this to you?”

Bucky doesn’t say anything. He barely even looks up. “S-sorry,” he whimpers, and he’s crying again, and Scott touches his shoulder but he withers under it.

“C’mon, buddy,” he says gently, “it’s okay, let’s just get home alright?” He thinks about pushing a hospital, but decides against it.

Bucky staggers a little getting to the car, but when Scott tries to touch him he rears his whole body away and cowers, so he doesn’t help him. Bucky doesn’t say anything other than “sorry,” so softly. It breaks him, a little.

***

Wanda paces uselessly until the bell rings, then hurdles to get them.

“Oh, my god,” Wanda whispers, and throws the door open. “Jesus Christ, Bucky. What the fuck happened?”

He isn’t answering. He slumps against the door and sinks to his knees like he’s been punched, which he certainly has, his body folding like a ragdoll. Wanda throws herself down next to him and, very lightly, tilts his chin up. His chin and nose and cheek are soaked in red, dripping down his neck past the marks there, hickies or bruises. She can’t tell. She supposes it doesn’t matter.

Scott’s eyes are huge. “He—he isn’t talking—”

“I wanna take a shower,” Bucky whimpers finally. Wanda and Scott share a glance.

“Okay,” she says quietly, although immediately, she’s thinking about head trauma and drowning and rape kits, but she fights it back because she isn’t going to tell him no. “Go ahead, babe.”

He does, hunched over slightly, stumbling. Wanda feels suddenly very cold.

“Scott,” she says urgently, “can you clear out?”

“But… why?” He sounds so worried, and she gets it, but there’s a flare of annoyance anyway.

“Why, Scott? ‘Cause someone just beat the shit out of him and raped him, and having an older, taller man here isn’t gonna help him forget that.”

Scott makes a choked noise. “Yep. Okay, you’re right. Fuck.” He scrubs both hands down his face. “I’m gonna kill this asshole—”

“That,” Wanda snaps, “is what you can’t say, in front of him, right now.”

“That’s why I’m saying it to you, isn’t it?” he replies, aggravated. Wanda rubs her temples, and he slumps back. “Sorry. Sorry. Just… I’m worried.”

“Me, too,” she says softly. “But we can’t force him to talk.”

Scott nods. Then he squeezes her hand, and she squeezes back. “I’m gonna go into the bedroom,” Scott says, “just… come get me, if you need anything, okay?”

She agrees, and then she waits.

When he emerges, looking diminished and burnt through, Wanda whispers, “It’s too warm in here for a sweater, Buck.”

He’s cold. She’ll think he’s lying if he says that, but it’s the truth. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever feel warm again.

_(Stay right there, James. You’re disgusting. Turn the cold water on. Don’t bother with the hot. You haven’t earned that, have you? Kneel there and face me and don’t fucking move and afterwards, you’re going to thank me for making you less repulsive, if it’s possible.)_

“Bucky!”

He’s sunk to his knees, eyes closed, bent over himself. Wanda kneels next to him, hand hovering uselessly above his back, not touching him. “Buck, look at me,” she whispers, and eventually, he straightens up a little.

“What happened?” she asks sharply.

Bucky tries to answer, but his breath is splintered in his throat and it takes him a few tries and when he chokes it out, his voice is thin and cracked. “N-nothing,” he chokes, “someone—someone got t-too rough—”

“Try again,” Wanda replies sharply. He winces. “You can’t lie to me about this anymore, Buck. Someone’s—someone’s abusing you.” He shakes his head, whimpering vaguely. “Let me see your arm,” Wanda says firmly. Bucky closes his eyes. He’s pale, sweat clinging to his forehead, probably feverish. It’s too hot to be wearing long sleeves. He stares down and lets her push the sleeve up.

It’s worse than before. Wanda winces looking at it. It’s more bruised than it isn’t, blood soaking through the fabric, cuts layered on top of the welts.

“Oh, my god, Bucky,” she whispers. “Fuck. Jesus, Buck, I’m so sorry.” He stares down and doesn’t answer. “Buck,” she says gently, “you aren’t gonna wanna hear this, but you gotta let me see your stomach and back.” Predictably, he shakes his head. “Babe, I wanna see if you need stitches.”

“I don’t,” he snaps. He hasn’t looked at her the whole time.

“Bucky—”

“You wanna make me undress, too, Wanda?” he snarls. The viciousness, as startlingly as it emerged, is gone, and he curls in on himself and heaves on a sob. 

“Buck,” she says softly. “I wanna make sure you don’t need a hospital.”

He shakes uncontrollably, peeling his shirt off. Wanda closes her eyes at the images it conjures. Context is so fucking cruel. Then he tucks his shoulders in, half lays his arm over his stomach, and looks down, weeping meekly.

Wanda feels her heart fracture in her chest. His skin looks almost alien with pain, the bruises covering everything, something out of fucking Fight Club. She doesn’t know how his body could even sustain that much pain, how it didn’t crumble in under it all. She bites her cheek.

He’s lost weight, which is terrifying, because he was concerningly thin before, but he’s been reduced to battered skin and bone. 

“Have you been eating?” Wanda hears herself say. He shrugs. “Bucky, why—” She closes her eyes. “Buck,” she finally says, so softly. “I’m gonna make you something to eat—”

“No,” Bucky croaks out. “I don’t, um—I’m not hungry–”

“You need to eat something,” Wanda says stubbornly. Bucky shakes his head again. “Bucky, what—”

“I don’t wanna feel full,” he whispers. “I don’t wanna swallow, Wanda, please, _please—_”

“Buck,” Wanda chokes out. “Jesus Christ, if he doesn’t kill you you’re gonna starve yourself to death.”

Bucky finds himself thinking that sounds appealing. Instead of saying that, he shrugs himself back into the hoodie.

“Babe, I’m making you soup, okay? Please, please eat it.”

He doesn’t say anything else, not for the entire time she makes soup, but when she sets it very lightly in front of him, he takes it. She sits with him; he finishes all of it, and then Wanda takes a breath.

“How long has he been hurting you?” Wanda whispers.

Bucky won’t look up. “He’s not hurting me—”

“Fucking look at yourself, Bucky!” she almost yells, voice crescendoing towards hysteria. He flinches. She curses herself. “Bucky. He’s abusing you, he’s raping you—” Bucky shakes his head, and Wanda rubs a hand over her face. “Who did this, Buck?” she asks, so softly.

“We have a deal,” he chokes out. “I have—I have to go back, I have to—”

“Babe, no.” Wanda takes a breath. “No way. You can’t go back there, Bucky. You could’ve been killed.”

“I have to,” Bucky whispers.

“Or what?” Wanda demands. “Bucky, if this guy’s threatening you then—then tell us, you know you can stay here, we know people who can handle him—”

“He’s not like that,” Bucky whispers. He’s rocking, now, without realizing it, arm curled over his stomach. “No one can stop him, nothing can stop him.” He bends over in a sob.

“I’m calling the police,” Wanda announces, and picks up her phone. It’s not her first choice in any scenario, but this guy is going to kill him. Panic leaps briefly in her chest at the thought.

Bucky stands up so fast he staggers. “No,” he says, voice shaking, “no, Wanda, don’t, don’t, _please_ don’t.”

“He’s gonna kill you, Buck,” she replies. “God, I fucking—I should’ve known, I should’ve known back when I first saw it, I thought—I didn’t—Bucky, this guy is a fucking monster—”

“Wanda, you know the cops won’t fucking do anything,” Bucky whimpers. “You can’t, you can’t do that to me.”

“Why does he have you coming back?” she asks him, phone still clutched to her chest.

Bucky shakes his head. 

“Either you promise me you aren’t gonna go back there or I’m calling the police, Bucky.”

He doesn’t promise. He doesn’t do anything but sink back on the couch and bury his face in his hand and cry. Wanda drops the phone and sits next to him.

He sobs, choked and helpless, for a long time. Wanda doesn’t touch him. “I thought—” he gasps finally, “I thought—I thought I c-could handle it.”

“No one can handle this, babe,” she says softly.

He’s out of it. He’s rocking again, eyes closed. She wants to hug him. “He just keeps hurting me,” Bucky whispers. His voice is so, so small, almost nothing. “I d-don’t want to, I don’t want it, he—he never, ever s-stops.” He sobs raggedly again, because everything hurts, shrieking pain that should be impossible, and because Alexander Pierce owns him. “I don’t wanna be his, I’m not his, I’m not his—” _(Worthless cunt, pathetic stupid disgusting faggot slut, you belong to me)_

Wanda‘s throat feels thick. “No,” she says shakily, “you aren’t. You’re not his. You’re Bucky.”

He whimpers a little.

“If this is about money,” Wanda begins quietly, “you can live here, we can help you.” She can’t, really, but it doesn’t matter right now. Bucky shakes his head, a little firmer. “Bucky, Jesus, if he’s paying—”

“It’s not that,” Bucky whispers. “He doesn’t give me anything.”

Wanda takes a breath. She doesn’t interrupt him.

“I have to g-go back,” he whispers again. “I can’t stop.”

“Bucky, _no_.”

“He’ll—he’ll make it worse,” Bucky whispers. “He’s gonna—” He breaks into tears again.

“What?” Wanda asks, almost begging him. He shakes his head at the ground. “Buck. Does he know you’re here?” He doesn’t technically live there anymore, but he’s there all the time. Bucky shakes his head. “Your last name? Anything besides James?” He shakes his head again. “Your phone?”

“He can get anything he wants,” Bucky croaks out. 

“Bucky,” she says frantically. “If—if he somehow finds you, we’ll deal. But he won’t, okay, he isn’t the fucking president.”

Bucky shudders.

“I’m so scared, Wanda,” he croaks out, voice breaking.

“I know, babe,” she whispers. “It’s okay, you’re gonna be okay.” Bucky wraps his arm around himself and whimpers, probably in protest. “Please, please promise me,” she whispers.

Bucky closes his eyes and nods. Brittle relief winds through her.

She stays with him until he stops crying, which must be over an hour, not making him talk or touching him, just waiting. 

“Take my bed—” she begins, and he shakes his head. “Buck, Jesus, I’m not offering you my firstborn—”

He can’t even force a laugh. “I don’t want a bed,” he whispers, wincing, and Wanda swallows.

“Okay,” she says softly, and leaves it there. “Buck, I’m here, okay? If you wanna tell me, or—or you don’t wanna be alone, alright? I love you.” He doesn’t say anything until she crosses the room.

“Wanda,” he whispers. She turns. “Thank you.”

***

He doesn’t talk about it, ever. He’s there the week after, curled in on himself, face shining with terror as he watches the clock and Wanda and Scott sit gently with him.

He doesn’t get better, exactly, but he stops getting rapidly worse. He gains a little weight back and the bruises fade, but that’s about the extent of the progress he makes. It’s hard to recover from rape when you go out there and sleep with strangers every day, and she watches it carve away at him. She doesn’t work at the club anymore, swapped out for a barista job, but she has nothing, and there’s no promise she can make him, no house or job or, ideally, therapy she can give him, so she just tries to be there.

They worry a lot, her and Scott. Bucky hasn’t smiled in weeks, and when he’s there, he doesn’t make it through the night without screaming, and if someone slams a door he jumps out of his skin.

The day he stops coming over, panic floors her. She goes weeks with one message from him letting her know he’s fine, and then nothing, and Wanda decided if he hasn’t been murdered she’ll do it herself, for putting her through this.

_December, 2012_

Bucky texts her, when she’s losing her mind with worry over where he is, _staying with someone. don’t worry._

Furious, she calls him, and gets nothing. _Not gonna fly, _she answers, fingers shaking a little. _I’m worried you got fucking kidnapped or something._

He answers _not kidnapped i promise. i can do lunch this week._

So she meets him there, fully prepared to yell at him, but then she sees him and he looks healthy and he smiles, really smiles, and she can’t bring herself to upset him. He tells her about Steve Rogers, and for the first time in three years, Wanda sees him happy. It floors her. She loves it.

**Author's Note:**

> Kinda part 1/2 probably bc i am soft for bucky and wandas friendship and am very attached to this universe and theres another thingy i have in my docs as a wip thats significantly happier so like look out for that
> 
> My pal cia deeply inspired parts of this bc i am often texting her abt fic things bc shes my number one writing consultant so like.....shes the best
> 
> Also this is instead of a chapter update on the sequel this week i have just not gotten it together enough to post it next week i promise
> 
> If u read this i love u for supporting this little story im deeply invested in.....you already know how much i cry over comments and messages they make me wanna keep posting these little one shots and such u guys are so Amazing
> 
> Jessemovie on tumblr! Until next week


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